In August 1869, John Wesley Powell’s first Colorado River expedition hits its hardest day: a violent rapid, battered boats, sour rations—and a split at Separation Canyon, where three men choose to climb out of the gorge and walk toward settlements instead of facing more whitewater.

In the Time and Tales Podcast Season 1 finale,, we follow the river from Green River Station to the mouth of the Virgin, then trace what little evidence we have for William Dunn, Oramel Howland, and Seneca Howland after they leave the boats—sorting surviving diaries, later testimony, and local rumor into what’s plausible, what’s likely propaganda, and why their disappearance still feels like an American fable: three men who walked out of the canyon alive and were never seen again.

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Sources:

• John Wesley Powell – Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1875).
• John Wesley Powell – The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons (Flood & Vincent, 1895).
• Frederick S. Dellenbaugh – A Canyon Voyage: The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908).
• Henry F. Dobyns & Robert C. Euler – “The Dunn-Howland Killings: Additional Insights,” Journal of Arizona History (Spring 1980).
• A. Scott – “The 150th Anniversary of the 1869 Powell Expedition,” U.S. Geological Survey (2020).